The Walter Kerr Theatre. New York.
Hadestown was the innovative Greek retelling of the classic myth of Orpheus and Euridice that never threatened to pull its punches. The productions’ refusal to mitigate, soften, or erase Orpheus’s fatal desire to see his lover for himself was powerful. It simply sat with that feeling of accountability as the song cut out suddenly and Euridice descended back to the Underworld in muted silence. There was no attempt to problem-solve or blame Orpheus but to merely state it as a fact of the human condition.
Without the glitzy haze of huge pop ballads to disguise the underlying message of suffering, failure, and the underworld, the piece was encapsulated by Persephone: strong, clear and full of hard liquor. Persephone (Amber Gray) carried the show with all the graceless heartbreak of a woman who knows that the man she chose to be with has innumerable flaws and yet the capacity for change. In the end, their relationship was presented exactly as it was, without moral or ethical comment but simply as a matter of having always been that way. One supposes that was the point the Greeks were reaching for by associating her character with the unceasing turn of the seasons.
Alongside her, Hermes, the narrator (André De Shields) ably opened and closed the show with a spotlight entry. He played with his waistcoat and toyed with the audience who laughed right on cue as he warmed them up. It was an appropriately crisp cold open for the show where small details like lighting a real match on the fly gifted the performance with that essential depth of reality necessary to tip the audience into its world.
The fixed set and scenery allowed for the visual integration of the live band on the stage in full downtown bar garb and stressed the focal movement up and down into Hadestown in the centre of the stage. It was uncomplicated, uncluttered, and extremely classy.
Performing this amid the Covid Omicrom peak and in the uncomfortable knowing retrospect of knowing that the theatres would shut down a week later, the audience too occupied a similar liminal position between certainty and uncertainty. It was a great watch and was appreciated as a moment one knew they had to seize before it was taken away. Hadestown was acted more than it was sung – refreshing for a musical. Orpheus’ haunting ‘la la la la la la la’ built to a crescendo from the slow, moody start to the performance. The particular highlights included ‘Wait for Me’, ‘Way Down Hadestown’ and ‘Road to Hell’ and all their various reprises.
The production very knowingly stressed the physical toil and made the audience feel the strain of each movement with the worker chorus showing at times a greater focus on movement and dance than singing. There was no glitzy humdinger single that lifted the production into abstraction, it did that itself, step by step, inch by inch. The final show demonstrated the way both lead roles failed, Euridice with her greed and Orpheus with his inability to trust her. Neither of them could trust their present.
Another interesting aspect of the play is that each previous iteration of the myth places blame on a different party: for Virgil’s poem, it is about the land and agriculture, while for Ovid it was Eurydice dancing with naiads on her wedding day, rather than fleeing to the underworld. For Plato, Orpheus is a coward by refusing to die with his lover and instead trying to get her back alive. This adaptation settles nowhere on that scale and simply explores the flaws in humanity.
While Hades saw some measure of the error of his ways, it’s also important to note that he remains the emblem of a flawed system with the unsubtle nod to Trump in ‘Why We Build The Wall’.
In this bold song, led in principle by the working chorus, to be allowed to work is the sign of empowerment, not subjugation. Implicitly, this route to American citizenship is paralleled with Euridice’s misplaced attraction to the power of the God of the Underworld. Stability without freedom, however, is nothing at all – and this is the point the production makes. I’m sure the applications of this farcical premise in modern politics weren’t lost on anyone present in the hall. Preaching to the choir, so to speak.
Even more impressive, however, was the performance of Orpheus portrayed by Trent Saunders. He hit all the right notes and while Hades chewed the scenery with his tracks, Orpheus slunk between the background and foreground with ease. Indeed, watching Saunders’ professionalism, one may never have guessed he was the last alternate for the performance. Without him, the show could not have gone on.
In this, and in many other ways, Hadestown opened my eyes to the importance of the understudy. Often, extremely talented individuals will be the understudy, the second in the running to the lead. These key players have to be present for all rehearsals and will likely know everyone’s words but rarely get to demonstrate their acting chops. The importance of these people working behind the scenes or as the understudy or standby is tantamount to the smooth running of the play. To perform even though you know your name isn’t on the poster that everyone came to see is no small feat. They are summed up by the white paper square tucked into the programme that has another actor’s name on it. To some, they are the substitute, the next best gluten-free alternative. Sometimes, I think audiences forget just how talented theatre kids are.
Today, Trent Saunders stepped up to the iconic role of Orpheus.
Not only do understudies have to learn multiple roles and play them with as little as an hour’s notice, but they have to immediately generate chemistry with their cast. Typically, the swings, understudies, and standbys do not rehearse with the main cast. At best, they rehearse with a core group of understudies, but with a very limited stage and technical presence – despite theoretical working knowledge of all of the above. They suddenly have to make their debuts in often difficult conditions, on the fly, and very aware that they are performing for an audience that likely doesn’t know they exist.
However, even when they don’t perform, the standby – who, as distinct from an understudy, doesn’t go onstage unless the lead role cannot perform – must remain no less than one block away from the theatre during all performances. Their value lies beyond their potential skill set, their ability to mitigate the ‘what if’ situations, but in their raw talent and adaptability. They enable the show to go on. Even more so, for understudies, who are often members of the ensemble already, they have a principal part learned, ready to deploy when necessary. This initiates a sequence of bumping up through the line of other understudies in the chorus cast. Although the swings and understudies typically only earn up to $100 or $50 more than the base pay of an ensemble actor - $2034 per week, they have an immense task. Many actors even audition specifically for the role of understudy, allowing them to offer their own spin on things, not just a carbon copy of what made the principal lead so compelling.
In the case of Hadestown, it was the last alternate who performed as the principal lead, Reeve Carney was absent, as was the first understudy, Sayo Oni. This left Trent Saunders, a swing understudy who was part of the worker chorus and had both Orpheus and Hermes’ roles on a lock, ready to go out and do his thing. He did a stellar job, making up for a slight lack of confidence on the high notes with a belting acting performance and stage presence that perfectly encapsulated the lovestruck working-class Orpheus. Impressively, he only arrived a few months earlier on the 26th October.
A lesson to us all, if one was needed, that there is no shortage of talent in musical theatre, and that, even if we do look backwards and get stuck in the Underworld, there will always be someone from above to take up the mantle to come and find you.
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